


give me all that you can give.

by thepapernautilus



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Early in Canon, F/M, Haircuts, Implied Sexual Content, Light Masochism, POV Fox Mulder, Slow Burn, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, seasons 1-3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-16 19:57:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21276836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepapernautilus/pseuds/thepapernautilus
Summary: 'Partner. Spy. Taken."Now, now, Agent Mulder, there’s no need to take my words out of context in such a way,” her grin is sweet and teasing. His heart pangs rebelliously. “I merely suggested that Skinner might take you more seriously if you came in with a fresh haircut.”'early x-files, somewhere in seasons 1-3. scully gives mulder a haircut in her kitchen and there is an unforgivable amount of UST.





	give me all that you can give.

_if you want to give_  
_then give me all that you can give_  
_all your darkest impulses and_  
_if you want to give me anything_  
_then give, give in again_

_give - sleep token_

He is seated in her kitchen, a freshly cleaned towel draped around his shoulders, watching her prepare to perform this daunting task she’s set for them this Sunday afternoon. There is sunlight, clean, bright, and autumnal flooding the cabinets and assorted crockery and setting her hair on fire as it brushes across her cheek and neck. Scully’s neatly ordered her implements on her countertop atop a dark washcloth; an electric razor, straight blade, scissors, combs and a spray bottle. 

“Ready?”

“Mm,” Mulder takes one last sip of the herbal tea she’d made for him, then leans back in the wooden dining chair. “Alright. Do your worst.” He shoots her a faux tough-guy look. It feels strange to have to look up to her like this. He’s become accustomed, even already, to her small diminutive stature that doesn’t belie an ounce of the raw willpower behind her five-foot-three body.

“Brave words from someone about to go under the knife,” she smiles, running her fingers with a cool touch through his hair, parting it this way and that with a critical gaze. He shudders beneath her, helpless under her touch. “Do you have any preference on how I cut this?”

“Something that Skinner won’t hate. You probably know better than I do.” He can’t believe how difficult it is to focus. 

“Ah, so the Mister Clean look, hmm?” As she’s examining his sideburns her nail drags down the stubble of his jaw, chilly and smooth. His legs tense painfully in response. A breath hitches in his throat. Heat shoots to his groin obscenely. 

“My hairline isn’t that bad yet, is it?” he forces out. 

“You’ve got a few years.” Her words are ushered away by the buzz of the electric razor. She has a hand on his shoulder and begins dragging it up the back of his head, giving it a curious flick of the wrist once she reaches the crown of his skull. Despite him being seated, she still has to come upon tip-toe at times to reach her mark and it makes him smile. When she leans in close to examine her work, her breath, smelling of the chocolate cookie he’d brought as an offering, washes over him and feels all too intimate. He gestures his shoulders to alleviate the itch of freshly cut hair on his nape. 

He tries to focus on how the briefing tomorrow is going to go and fails — the drag of her nails across his scalp, the sweetness of her breath, and worst of all her breast pushing into his shoulder force him acutely into the here-and-now and he is painfully anchored by her physical presence. He’s only worked with her a few months on a handful of cases and yet she has become a hardpoint for him to base reality upon. Sometimes he feels himself cutting at the restraints but he’s also deathly afraid to fall without her there. 

The electric razor quiets. He’s too aware of her gentle breathing in the quiet kitchen as she examines her handiwork with a critical gaze, pushing his head this way and that with impartial hands that are warm and soft. She sets the razor down, picks up the scissors, and begins nipping a few trouble-areas at first, then settles into a methodical pattern of measuring, cutting, combing, and measuring again. 

“Where did you learn to cut hair?” 

Snip. Comb. Spritz-spritz. Comb. “My mother. She always cut my family’s hair growing up and taught Melissa and I when we were old enough to be trusted. Bill and Charlie still ask us to cut their hair when they visit.” It is taking everything in him to not sigh and shudder in response to her every touch. Is this why some guys are into haircuts? Because this feels incomprehensibly intimate and fucking _erotic, _like giving someone a massage or holding onto their waist on a bike, those undeniably intimate moments that we lie to ourselves and say they mean nothing but it _definitely _means _something_.

“Do you cut your own hair?” He asks, curious and needing her to talk more to distract himself.

“Mm, usually.” She moves to his front now to trim his bangs, teasing them out and measuring their evenness with the comb. She’s biting her bottom lip as she works. There’s an unforgivably adorable smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. He can’t but help (that’s what he tells himself) but see a peek of the cotton bra between the folds of her flannel button-down. For a brief second, when she moves, he can see clear down to her navel. He clenches his fists beneath the towel and remembers the last time he saw that bra, maybe the very same one, in a candlelit hotel room in Washington State. “It’s cheap. Sometimes it can take a while, though.” Her words drag him back to reality and he attempts to stay there\

“I should be paying you, Scully. You seem very good at this.”

She laughs. “Mulder, I’m the one who asked to do it.” 

“Asked? You insisted, actually, and went so far as to insinuate I’d embarrass you if I didn’t.” 

“Now, now, Agent Mulder, there’s no need to take my words out of context in such a way,” her grin is sweet and teasing. His hearts pangs rebelliously. “I merely _suggested _that Skinner might take you more seriously if youcame in with a fresh haircut.” 

“Suggested my ass,” he snarks, but quiets when her hand comes to his jaw, cupping his chin with her warm hand. It’s surprisingly dominate and infinitely arousing. 

“Look up for me,” she murmurs. He obeys without volition, boneless under her touch. She carefully trims his sideburns, the scissors whispering against his skin. He entertains a vague fantasy of her holding the scissors to his neck in threat and coming astride him in this wooden chair in her sunlit kitchen and taking him like this. She would find no fight in him.

_Partner, partner, partner, _his self-control snarls at him. _Spy, _his paranoia sneers. _Taken, _howls his insecurities. It’s enough to break his reverie and he focuses instead on the way she tugs gently on his ear to snip the hairs away.

“You’re very good at… don’t take this the wrong way, but feminine things,” he tells her.

The look she gives him is incredulous. “Feminine things? What in the hell does that mean, Mulder?”

“Tasks traditionally assigned to the female gender role,” he says quickly. “You know how to sew buttons, all the best ways to get blood out of clothes, cut hair. I even bet you’re a great cook.”

She’s behind him now and her small hand presses his head down, so much like when they were at each other’s throats in Alaska. “Down,” she commands. Dominatrix Scully dances in front of his eyes as he stares down at his lap. _Please, mistress, ask me to worship you, lick your boots, lick your cunt—_

_Partner. Spy. Taken._

“I’d say they’re more essential life skills in the late twentieth century,” she muses. “Really it’s a shame you don’t know those things. I could teach you, if you like.”

“I’m not quite as good with my hands as you are. Big hands and all.” The innuendo makes him flush hotly and he’s not sure if he’s grateful or disappointed when she doesn’t address it. 

“Yes, well, who knows how long we’ll be partners, and your next partner might not have as much patience for your… lack of domesticity as I do.”

“What are your longterm plans with the Bureau?” He asks suddenly, then winces. “God, I sound like Skinner. This is your day off, feel free to ignore that question.”

“It’s fine,” she’s picked up the straight razor now. It glitters in her hand like her usual scalpels. “Don’t move, alright?”

He holds his breath as she begins lining up his hairline, beginning at the nape of his neck and working her way around his face. He can feel the razor drag down his skin and it takes everything in him to resist shuddering against it. This interplay of lethality and intimacy is insatiably addictive.

“I’m not sure yet. I want to see how far we can take the X-Files, you know? How much ground we can cover. I might be interested in conducting research based on what we find. I’m open to wherever this leads us.” 

_We. Us. _It’s enough. Her words are a balm to his anxieties and he wants to dwell infinitely in this safe place she’s created for them. She’s not going to run away at the first chance after all. It will take far worse to scare her off than the horrors they’ve already born witness to together. And maybe, just maybe, he could learn to trust her.

The words _thank you _and _I’m so glad _float on his tongue but instead he says, “It’s your funeral. If I were you I’d get out of there at the first chance. It’s career suicide, you know—“

“Fuck,” she swears. It’s one of a handful of times he’s heard her curse and it’s delightfully profane on her pink lips. 

“Uh oh.”

“I’ve nicked you, sorry. Let me get the styptic.” She stands quickly and rushes to her bathroom. He can hear her rustling for a first aid kit. He reaches a hand to the side of his face and brings it back. A bead of blood rests on his finger. 

“I didn’t even feel it,” he calls to her.

“I’m not surprised,” she replies, coming back into the kitchen. “That’s the point of a razor. It’s so sharp, it’s got you before you feel it.” She applies the pencil to his neck to stop the bleeding, then swabs it with stinging isopropyl alcohol. He can see her lovely face from the corner of his eye and resists the urge to lean into her ministrations. 

“I want my money back,” he says sardonically to her as she disposes of the swab in the bin.

“Don’t be a baby, I’ve given myself far worse cuts shaving.”

The bait dangles and he bites. “Shaving where?” He asks lecherously. 

“My ankles. They’re hairy. Bigfoot hairy.” she says wickedly, then takes a soft brush and sweeps off his neck and shoulders. “I’d say we’re done. Go look in the mirror?” She unpins the hair clip and removes the towel from his shoulders with a flourish. He stands, stretches, listens to the bones in his back snap-crackle-pop, then pads to the bathroom as she begins cleaning up.

She’s done a clean job of it. The fade is blended seamlessly and his hairline could be measured with a ruler. It’s definitely a better job than the SportsClips down the street from his apartment had ever done. He admires Scully’s handiwork, turning this way and that in the mirror. It’s the cleanest he’s looked since he started working on the X-Files, that’s for sure. Skinner might take him seriously for once. 

Scully is sweeping his hair into a dustbin and he takes the broom from her and finishes the job, taking his time to ensure her kitchen floor is as clean as when he arrived.

When he’s done, she touches his shoulder. “Let me see,” she tells him. He stands still as she takes his jaw in her small hand and moves his head to each side, her fingers swiping his cheek. Her thumb brushes the corner of his lip and it takes more than a little effort to resist kissing it, or worse, taking it into his mouth.

She tuts impatiently. “I missed a spot around your ear, hang on.” She snatches up the scissors and he leans down for her. Her face is less than an inch from his as she carefully snips whatever microscopic amount of hair she missed. 

He couldn’t care less about his hair. He could look like Frohike for all he cared. He was entirely too absorbed in the way her clean face shimmered before him, the blush playing on her cheeks, the curve of her nose, and most importantly, the pout of her lips and the hairpin curve of her cupid’s bow. When she leans back their eyes catch; he’d figured, from a safe impartial distance, her eyes were blue-green hazel but now he knows he was wrong; it’s pure Arctic ocean, impossibly blue ice, calculated but undeniably human and feminine.

There’s a stray hair on her cheek and he seizes the opportunity to cup her face in his hand and brush it away, lingering for as long as he dares. Her face is so, so warm in his. He’s damned if she doesn’t lean into it, just a little, and her eyes soften imperceptibly, lashes falling. 

_Partner. Spy. Taken._

“Hair,” he says quickly, pulling his hand away before he’s caught stealing this moment from her. 

“Thanks,” she looks down quickly. “Um. Thanks for the cookie. And helping clean up.”

“Pleasure’s all mine, Scully. Thank you for a job well done. You should quit this G-man business and go into cosmetology. Probably make a hell of a lot more money. … I mean that in the least sexist way possible.”

She laughs, genuine and sweet. “I’ll take the compliment. Go get some rest and finish that report.”

“C’mon, it’s my day off,” he complains as he makes his way to the door. “We could go grab a beer or something.”

He could throw himself down a flight of stairs in that moment. What the _fuck _was he thinking? Grab a beer? With her? The woman who, for all he knew, could be the sexiest sleeper cell agent to ever waltz into the Hoover Building’s basement? She’d gone on a date with some guy a month prior; she probably had plans with him later tonight. Hadn’t he seen that second toothbrush in the bathroom?

She’s hesitating and he can’t blame her. She purses her lips and gives him the same pitying look every woman who’s ever broken up with him (and there have been a lot, so he should know) gives him. He beats her to the punchline.

“I’m sorry, that was damned inappropriate—“

“No, Mulder.” She holds a placating hand up. “It’s quite alright. Another time?” She smiles softly.

“Another time.” He shrugs on his leather jacket and opens her apartment door. “See you tomorrow—“

“Wait,” she calls, then quick as bottled lightning closes the gap between them and reaches up and swipes his jaw with her thumb. This time he does lean into her touch, allowing him this singular moment of weakness, a reward for resisting far worse things during her haircut. She’s very, very close when she pulls away and her breath is hot on his face. 

“Hair,” she murmurs, eyes wide and shy. 

There is a full moment where he knows he’s going to kiss her. There is nothing he can do. It’s as inevitable as the amniotic seas and more predetermined than the spinning of the stars themselves. And god, does he _want _it, more than anything. Why is he so drawn to the things he cannot have in his life? 

But he hesitates. 

_Partner. Spy. Taken. _

And then he leaves. 

Monday morning she comments impersonally on his excellent job of cleaning himself up. He promises her it’s back to his general half-assedness come Tuesday, not looking up from his reports. 

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” she snorts. “I’ll cut your hair in the office if I have to. Come back over when you need another trim.” 

He tells himself it’s economical. It’s meaningless and he just needs to get laid and get all these teenaged hormones out of his system and into some nameless fuckbuddy. To be honest, he doesn’t know if he can suffer another thirty minutes of nothing but her touching and caring for him.

_Partner.spy.ta—_

He tells her he will and the smile she returns him for his fealty is genuine and life-affirming. He knows she’s Catholic from the cross dangling around her neck and the stories she tells him sometimes of parochial schooling but he wonders if she isn’t secretly a witch after all, blessed profoundly in the deeply contrasting arts of beauty and scientific analysis. 

There was only one way to find out — an incredibly thorough investigation of Dana Scully. 

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: sorry for hiatus-ing, i had a terrible horrible no-good very bad summer and college has had me blessedly busy. believe it or not this one's been rattling around my head since may. 
> 
> this was inspired in part by [astrofyre](https://astrofyre.tumblr.com/) 's lovely mulder/scully drawings. please, please give them lots of love.


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